*Edit: Good and Evil is a wide blanket to thrust over many such topics, Chaos and Order being one of them?Perhaps in some sense. Though chaos isn't necessarily evil, and order isn't necessarily good. For example, a storm is chaotic, but it's not evil (it's not evil or good, it just is). And a complete dictatorship would likely be very highly ordered, but yet we tend to classify those as evil.
The true difference between good and evil ultimately rests with you and your own point of view.This is SO very true!
Despite the differences in definitions for good and evil, good and evil are non-inclusive and opposites, and thus what one is directly shows what the other is by what the first is not. Thus you get good and evil at the same time, representing what the other is through the very opposite nature of what they are.I disagree. "Good" and "evil" are not mutually exclusive. Which is to say that it is a mistake to see things in terms of purely good or purely evil. Such simplistic classification never truly fits. The vast majority of things lay somewhere in between.
For example, say I have a number. This number is 1.So... mathematically you can separate one set from another. Ok... so whats the point? This does not even begin to show how good and evil fit such a model. You are simply asserting that this is the case. Showing an example of something that fits the model of a dichotomy in no way shows that good and evil follow this model. In fact they don't; good and evil if anything would be closer to a spectrum with most things falling somewhere in the middle. But of course even this model is flawed since where something falls on the spectrum depends upon the observer.
1 is 1, therefore, 1=1. I also know that 1=/=k for all values k=/=1. Therefore, 1 is not 2, and 2 is not 1. 1 is not .23098 and .23098 is not 1. 1 is not everything but 1, and everything but 1 is not 1.
Such as the set of valid x values for the graph of (x-1)/(x-1): x can be anything but one, and thus x is not one. (I know if you simplify it, or take the limit, you CAN have x, but simplifying changes the premise, and taking the limit is a completely different action)
The point I was trying to make was that the information encoding what each is exists as long as its counterpart exists. I was thinking of it in a very boolean manner.The problem is that it doesn't work in a boolean manner, even if you try to break it down. What one person considers "evil" isn't necessary so to anyone else. Also, even the same act isn't necessarily good or evil, nor made up of good and evil elements. To try to fit it into a dichotomy is far too simplistic and just doesn't doesn't work in the real world.
Well, we could start talking about Relative Morality vs. Objective Morality, but that's a whole different debate for a whole different day. ;)The point I was trying to make was that the information encoding what each is exists as long as its counterpart exists. I was thinking of it in a very boolean manner.The problem is that it doesn't work in a boolean manner, even if you try to break it down. What one person considers "evil" isn't necessary so to anyone else. Also, even the same act isn't necessarily good or evil, nor made up of good and evil elements. To try to fit it into a dichotomy is far too simplistic and just doesn't doesn't work in the real world.
For example, I'm now going to type a letter: EJ
Was that evil? Was it good? Does it even matter? No.
I realize that you could claim that it's "good" as its helping me to illustrate a point, or you could try to claim that it stands for evil, but such things would just be confusing the issue and ignoring the point. Things are not comprised of good or evil; these are just terms we use for communicating.
Well, we could start talking about Relative Morality vs. Objective Morality, but that's a whole different debate for a whole different day. ;)Yes, but it must by necessity be "Relative Morality" we are dealing with because "Objective Morality" doesn't really exist.
If it is Relative Morality we are dealing with, and thus everything would be nothing more than descriptors, yes, you wouldn't have good and evil to begin with other than what each person would define it as in the first place, making the entire discussion moot because you'd be dealing with too many definitions, so good and evil would thus both exist, one would exist without the other, AND none would exist, all simultaneously due to the relative nature of the matter and all the different definitions (or lack of definitions) that cause each of those various states to exist.